Share/Save]]>http://www.ips.org/TV/copenhagen/mitologia-indigena-y-cambio-climatico/feed/3Climate Testimonyhttp://www.ips.org/TV/copenhagen/climate-testimony/
http://www.ips.org/TV/copenhagen/climate-testimony/#commentsWed, 16 Dec 2009 18:16:54 +0000editorhttp://www.ips.org/TV/copenhagen/?p=1306Farmers from across Africa share their stories on how climate changes have changed their lives for the worst during Pan African Climate hearings held in Cape Town, South Africa.
Share/Save]]>http://www.ips.org/TV/copenhagen/climate-testimony/feed/0“The Struggle Does Not Stop Here,” Say Witnesses at Climate Hearinghttp://www.ips.org/TV/copenhagen/the-struggle-does-not-stop-here-say-witnesses-at-climate-hearing/
http://www.ips.org/TV/copenhagen/the-struggle-does-not-stop-here-say-witnesses-at-climate-hearing/#commentsTue, 15 Dec 2009 16:36:26 +0000editorhttp://www.ips.org/TV/copenhagen/?p=1175

Climate witnesses at first international climate hearing. Credit: Claudia Ciobanu/IPS.

Claudia Ciobanu

COPENHAGEN (IPS/TerraViva) – ‘’Those who run the decision-making on climate change are the same who have caused it,’’ said Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the world’s first international climate hearing on Tuesday.

He was pithily identifying the reason why justice has been elusive at the ongoing climate change summit in the Danish capital.

Climate victims from all over the world were practically trying to scream into the ears of the negotiators at the COP15 that everybody’s lives were at stake unless a fair deal was reached.

Over the past year, more than one and a half million people from 36 countries around the world have participated in national climate hearings, testifying on how climate change has wreaked havoc in their lives and asking for justice.

‘’This is a case of deep injustice,’’ said the Archbishop who led the hearings on Tuesday along with former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson.

The timing of the international hearings could not have been better. Across the corridors in the Bella Centre, negotiators were trying to regroup after Monday’s suspension of negotiations as African countries, backed up by the entire G77 group of 130 developing states, protested against the conduct of the negotiations.

Rather than going along a two-track approach preferred by the poorest countries, the negotiations seemed to be following the interests of the developed states.

“We are holding this international climate hearing at a critical moment in the negotiations,” said Jeremy Hobbs, the executive director of Oxfam International, which hosted the hearings.

“The stories of the climate witnesses should provide the moral imperative for a fair deal in Copenhagen,’’ said Hobbs, with just four days left for governments to reach an agreement.

The reality of the crisis in negotiations loomed large over the hearings as the conflict between the industrialised and the developing world surfaced. And the messages from the climate change witnesses stood out the louder for it.

Speaking in the name of his indigenous brothers from Latin America, Caetano Juanca, a farmer from Cuzco, Peru, told the international audience in Copenhagen that his people were suffering without being guilty, and called for an agreement that “respects Pachamama (Mother Earth).”

Pelonesi Alofa from Trinidad and Tobago said that the CoP15 negotiators are “buying and selling’’ the lives of people. “Don’t we understand that climate change is not negotiable?” she asked. “I have now understood that CoP15 is beyond climate change, beyond Tobago.”

Constance Okolet from Uganda explained that her people do not know any more when to plant and when to harvest, that they are eating only once a day, and that seasons have disappeared. “I am here to tell the world leaders that we want our seasons back!” she told the audience.

Shorbanu Khatun from Bangladesh, the last to testify, recounted how, as traditional crops failed in her village, her husband was reduced to foraging for food, only to be killed by a wild animal. Later on, her home was destroyed by a cyclone. “At first I thought god was punishing us,” she said, “but I have come to understand that it is man-made.”

Robinson concluded the hearings by stating that not only were the effects of climate change brought about by the actions of industrialised countries but they were being felt disproportionately by people who cannot be blamed for climate change.

“The failure of industrialised countries to act with urgency is leading us all to social and international disorder,” she warned.

The people’s fundamental right to “international and social order” (a basic principle in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) is denied through the manner in which decisions about how to tackle climate change are being made, she said.

Robinson asked for industrialised countries to commit immediately to 40 percent emissions reductions by 2020 based on 1990 levels and to offer long-term – and additional – funding worth 200 billion US dollars annually until 2020 – half for adaptation and half for mitigation.

“I do not trust the governments of industrialised countries because they are only interested in money and they do not care about Pachamama,” Caetano Juanca told TerraViva. “But I trust the people, the work done through churches and communities – there are people who care.’’

Asked what will happen if a fair deal is not signed in Copenhagen, Juanca responded: ‘’We will continue to fight until they listen to us. Our struggle does not stop here.”
(END/2009)

COLOMBO (IPS/TerraViva) – Some Sri Lankan experts are not pinning their hopes on the ongoing climate talks in Copenhagen, saying greenhouse gas emissions will continue to torment the world as long as western lifestyles remain the same.

The key, therefore, is for the island state—and other developing countries for that matter—to tackle climate change right in their own backyards. That is, through applicable mitigation and adaptation measures. But that is easier said than done.

Kusum Athukorala, president of the Network of Women Water Professionals in Sri Lanka, a non-governmental group advocating improved water governance, said the only way out of the abyss of global warming—or an increase in average global temperatures—that many say have been forced on small countries by the west is mitigation and adaptation.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference, which is being held in the Danish capital from Dec. 7 to 18, is expected to produce a far-reaching climate agreement that will spell out legally binding emission targets, particularly among the world’s major economies.

“Global warming can be reduced through mitigation or adaptation. We cannot mitigate (because the rich countries won’t do it). Thus we can adapt to the conditions, but that, too, is not being done,” she said.

Like most of the developing world, Sri Lanka, alongside other island nations like Maldives, Seychelles and Madagascar, faces the brunt of greenhouse gas, in particular carbon dioxide, emissions. Experts say emissions trigger sea-level rise that in turn threatens life and property, particularly in areas most vulnerable to climate change such as low-lying island states.

“For climate change to be minimised, western lifestyles must change (in conformity with the developing world),” said Piyal Parakrama, executive director of the Colombo-based Centre for Environmental and Nature Studies. But that is not happening, he rued.

Parakrama cited car production in the developed world as a case in point. Cars that were previously produced with a life span of more than 25 years are now made to last a much shorter period so that more cars could be sold to the developing world, thus raising incomes and reinforcing lavish western lifestyles, he alleged.

But instead of bringing down their carbon emissions, “they buy credit (carbon trading) from us and continue (to produce and pollute) as before.”

Carbon trading is a mechanism designed to control pollution through the grant of economic incentives for reducing carbon emissions. Under this scheme, companies are issued emission permits and corresponding allowances that cannot exceed the cap. Should these business entities require additional credits, they can buy from those that are able to reduce emissions below their allowances.

Small towns near rivers going under water during flash floods and salt water getting into rivers affecting populations are some of the climate change issues that Sri Lanka is struggling to cope with, said Athukorala.

She said Sri Lanka is still not prepared for the dire consequences of climate change. “Weather patterns have changed. One month’s rainfall now takes place on a single day, with high-intensity rain, while flashfloods are occurring all the time,” noted the water expert, who has been working on climate change issues for the past five years.

Sri Lanka, for instance, has two cultivation seasons for its main rice crop, but because of the changing weather patterns, the four-month crop season has been reduced by half.

“Yet, no attempt has been made (by the government) to provide enough seed to farmers (suited to) a shorter crop season. Everyone blames the weather but does nothing about it,” she said. “We need to adapt fast or we would be facing a serious food security issue.”

Then, too, there is the issue of buildings being erected on mountainsides and river reservations, which the government should forbid. Yet this is not happening because “corrupt officials” are allowing it, she added.

In an earlier interview with IPS, Prof Mohan Munasinghe, one of the foremost experts on climate change and currently vice-chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, painted a frightening picture of the impact of climate change on Sri Lanka.

The co-laureate of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize said the global environmental problem would have serious consequences on water, agriculture, health and the coast.

“A major part of Jaffna (the main coastal town in the north) will be submerged when the sea level rises. So people are fighting and dying over areas that may soon not be there,” Prof Munasinghe, a key participant at the Copenhagen climate conference, told IPS.

In mid-2009, government troops crushed the rebels, ending a near 30-year-long battle with the Tami Tiger rebels who wanted an independent homeland for their minority Tamil community.

The most worrying aspects of climate change’s impacts, he said, would be seen in agriculture, saying a half-a-metre sea level rise in Sri Lanka over the next two decades will make dry areas drier and wet areas becoming wetter. “With higher temperatures and less water, paddy-field farming output will fall by 20 to 30 percent in the next 20 to 30 years.

He had also predicted that in the hotter areas, mosquitoes would be more rampant and even expand into the more hilly areas.

Still another concern among experts is the ongoing construction of two coastal power plants in Sri Lanka, raising doubts on its efforts toward mitigating the impacts of climate change.

“We don’t have a proper energy policy and planners are not prepared to invest in huge solar and wind power plants when there is enormous scope for this energy in Sri Lanka. Without any other renewable source, the authorities are looking for coal as a quick option to the energy shortage,” ecologist Parakrama said.

He said Sri Lanka is building two coal power plants when the rest of the world is moving away from this energy source because of its environmental risks.

Based on established global data, carbon dioxide emissions from coal are slightly higher than from petroleum and nearly double the amount from natural gas.

Sri Lanka imports oil and gas for its thermal power stations, which, along with hydropower, supply the country’s energy needs. But the shortage and high cost of fuel has prompted the government to harness what is said to be a cheaper energy source – coal. A power plant, financed by the Exim Bank of China, is already being built on the north-western coast and due to be completed in 2015, with the first phase expected to be ready by 2011

Construction of another power plant, a joint undertaking with the Indian government, has been approved and is expected to commence next year.

The world’s largest coal producer is China, followed by the United States, Russia, India and Australia.

“Because they (rich countries) can’t have coal power plants (due to global warming) and have to utilise these resources, coal power plants are promoted in countries like Sri Lanka,” Parakrama said.

Prof Munasinghe believes local mitigation measures should complement those of the industrialised countries. “Unfortunately, if the developed world doesn’t do anything to mitigate the impact (of climate change), there’s little Sri Lanka can do,” he said.

COPENHAGUE (IPS/TerraViva) A new report has accused developed nations and some environmental non-governmental organisations of distorting understanding of the role of forestry and land conversion in reducing poverty and not failing to acknowledge the developing world’s economic needs.

The report, “Conversion: The Immutable Link between Forestry and Development,” was authored by Alan Oxley, chairman of World Growth, a US-based non-profit NGO established, according to its website, to bring balance to the debate over trade, globalization, and sustainable development.

Oxley says arguing for the cessation of conversion of tropical forest to other land uses is an anti-development strategy.

The report claims that the distorted view and rationale for redirecting aid money away from policies focusing on economic growth and towards conservation programs is that this supports ‘forest dependent peoples’.

But, he says, it is a “green hypocrisy” to ask developing countries to give up the economic opportunities which industrialised economies previously enjoyed.

“Conversion of forest land has been regarded by the FAO for a long time as a standard development path for developing countries with forest resources. It was the development path followed in Europe. But EU countries now want to deny that opportunity to forested developing countries,” Oxley told TerraViva.

“The EU (as well as the U.S.) have decided that their agricultural sectors should be exempted from their national cap and trade emission reduction programs. Yet they insist that a primary means by which developing countries reduce emissions, land conversion, cease as a contribution by those countries to reduce emissions.”

According to Oxley, Indonesia has been a particular target because it has the largest forest industry in Southeast Asia. He says there has been a sustained campaign by WWF and Greenpeace, European governments led by the UK and the Netherlands, and by the World Bank to overstate the rate of deforestation and understate the amount of land set aside for conservation in Indonesia.

He also charges that campaigners overstate the incidence of illegal logging and misrepresent the economic benefits to Indonesia of its forest plantation and palm oil industries.

The report provides a case study in which Indonesia and Western Europe are compared in regards to forests and development. Agricultural areas dominate in Western Europe, the study says, whereas forests are the dominant landscape in Indonesia. In terms of numbers, agricultural areas cover 40 percent of land area in Western Europe, compared to just 27 percent in Indonesia. Forest areas cover around 50 percent of Indonesia’s land, compared to just over 35 percent of Western Europe.

By this he means to show a fundamental double standard being applied to developing countries in the context of the climate debate.

Oxley concludes, “The fixation of the green NGOs on halting forestry blinds them to the only solution to halt excessive and avoidable land clearing – end poverty. One of the most effective ways to do that is foster economically-beneficial plantation industries.”

Dr. Doddy Sukadri, Chair of the Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry Task Force (LULUCF) for the Indonesia National Council on Climate Change said conversion of forested land to other uses in Indonesia is a planned and managed activity.

“Since 1980, long before the issue of conversion came to the floor as it is now,” Sukadri told TerraViva. “Indonesia had already set aside about fifty percent of the forest area to be converted into other purposes of development, such as agriculture, settlement and estate crops amongst other things.”

Greenpeace states that Indonesia leads the world in greenhouse gas emissions through deforestation, and is third – behind the U.S. and China – in terms of total emissions. During the last 50 years, over 74 million hectares of Indonesia’s forests have been destroyed – logged, burned, degraded, pulped – and the products shipped round the planet.

Stephen Campbell, head of campaigns for Greenpeace Australia-Pacific, was shown the Oxley report and responded to the criticisms.

“Mr. Oxley and his corporate entities are known climate change deniers and are focused on slowing and undermining effective action on climate change. He has been known to provide consultancy services for multinational logging companies and is linked to fossil fuel funded think tanks,” Campbell told TerraViva.

According to Campbell, Greenpeace argues against the logging of old growth forests around the world. In his view, this is a necessary step to prevent climate chaos, preserve biodiversity and to protect the lands, rights and cultures of forest-dwelling peoples.

On the question of ending poverty, Greenpeace argues that financial resources for development should be made available through a deal on climate change, and has proposed the Forest for Climate mechanism, now being seriously considered by parties at the climate negotiations.

COPENHAGEN (IPS/TerraViva) With five days to go at COP15 the REDD proposal no longer offers tangible targets for halting deforestation. A safeguard on the conversion of natural forest into plantations has been re-inserted though.

After the last UNFCCC session in Barcelona in November, a target of a 50 percent drop in the rate of deforestation by 2020 -and a complete ban on loss of forest cover by 2030 – had provisionally included in the agreement. Both have now been cut from the draft text of the LCA working group on REDD, which is in possession of TerraViva.

The text is still under negotiation and it is expected that final details around REDD funding will only emerge at the ministers’ meeting upcoming week.

Guarding against forest conversion

Critical language about safeguards, rights of indigenous people and drivers of deforestation has been moved from the operational text to the preamble.

The safeguards against conversion of natural forests were removed during the UNFCCC meeting in Bangkok in October. Forest campaigners protested this would permit the large-scale destruction of natural forests by converting them into commercial plantations, eligible for REDD funding.

Paragraph 4 of the current draft only “encourages” parties involved in setting up REDD projects to address drivers of deforestation.

“Global demand for forest commodities like illegal timber and palm oil is one of the leading causes of tropical deforestation around the world,” said Andrea Johnson of Environmental Investigation Agency. “If we don’t address the causes of the problem, how can we find a solution?”

Protecting indigenous rights

Similarly the draft agreement does not spell out clear protection for marginalised groups, but encourages parties to pursue “means of ensuring the full and effective participation, taking into account gender considerations of indigenous people and local communities.”

“A mere encouragement would not be enough to make sure the right of indigenous people are respected,” WWF’s climate chief Kim Carstensen told TerraViva. “The current text is too much a preamble and breathes too little decision.”

However, the latest indications from sources within the negotiations are that paragraph 4 will get a more compulsory character. There are also strong signs a suggestion to following United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) could be turned into a binding condition.

“The language on rights of indigenous people is not as strong as we had expected,” says Robert Buhereko, REDD working group coordinator of civil society in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

“Many nations, like the DRC, have no national legislation to protect the right of indigenous people, or don’t enforce it. So it’s crucial that countries are bound to UNDRIP, otherwise the agreement is really weak.”

“If UNDRIP becomes binding, it will be interesting to see the reaction of countries that haven’t signed the declaration, like the U.S.,” Lou Verchot, principal scientist at the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) told TerraViva. “That might delay an agreement.”
For the love of peat

The issue of degradation of peat lands, which according to a recent Dutch study attributes to three percent of greenhouse gas emissions – more than global air traffic – has not been included in the agreement to the disappointment of observer groups following the talks.

“Peat soils are a key part of many countries’ plans to reduce their emissions, including large emitters like Indonesia,” said Susanna Tol of Wetlands International. “If peat soils are not in REDD, these efforts will go unsupported.”

The actions that the negotiators did manage to agree on held little surprises. The LCA instructs the SBSTA, the technical body of the UNFCCC to develop a mechanism for measuring, reporting and verifying emissions and calls for adequate funding from industrialised nations.

There’s still disagreement whether finance will be distributed through a new fund established under the Conference of the Parties or “existing bilateral and multilateral channels”.

A controversial issue that has not been resolved it whether to put REDD under the National Appropriate Mitigations Action (NAMA) mechanism that is being negotiated in Copenhagen. The NAMAs encompass all mitigation actions taken by developing countries, rather than just the forest related ones.

“The negotiations on REDD are much further than on NAMAs, so integrating them would be a roadblock for the implementation of REDD,” says Verchor.

He considers the main drawbacks of the text that there is no mention of international leakage (the relocating of emissions) and no indication of the amount of funding that will be required to realise REDD.

“What is encouraging about this draft though is that it’s result-based and that the negotiators have prescribed a clear link between REDD and reducing poverty.”

“REDD cannot just focus on reducing emissions, it most also deliver co-benefits. That is a good thing.”